Panelists speak out against war on Iraq and on civil liberties

Tracy Mitrano, director of Computer Law and Technology in the Office of Information Technologies, speaks during the "Week Against War" panel discussion in Willard Straight Hall, Feb. 12, while fellow panelist Matthew Evangelista, professor of government and Peace Studies Program director, looks on. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

If the United States drops 800 cruise missiles on Baghdad in three days as part of operation "Shock and Awe," said Matthew Evangelista, professor of government and director of Cornell's Peace Studies Program, "we are more likely to be viewed by the Iraqi people as war criminals, not liberators."

Evangelista was among four Cornell faculty and staff panelists Feb. 12 discussing the potential war on Iraq. The panel discussion was one of a series of events organized on campus last week by the New York Campus Communities for Justice and Peace and the Cornell Forum for Justice and Peace.

Brett de Bary, Cornell professor of Asian studies, introduced the three Cornell speakers: Tracy Mitrano, director of Computer Law and Technology in the Office of Information Technologies; Evangelista; and Naoki Sakai, professor of Asian studies and comparative literature. Panel topics ranged from the impact of the Patriot Act on civil liberties and privacy to perspectives from abroad on U.S. foreign policy. The audience swelled from 25 to about 75 people during the event, which was held in the International Room of Willard Straight Hall. The week's other events, coordinated with 35 schools across New York, included teach-ins, speeches, rallies, street theater, cinema, concerts, poetry readings and panel discussions.

The affiliated "Week Against War" efforts culminated with a massive peace demonstration in New York City Feb. 15.

Mitrano led off her presentation with what she called "good news" published that morning in The New York Times.

"The Total Information Awareness Program, championed by the defense department and our historic friend John Poindexter [director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office and a key figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal}, in particular, has been scrapped," she said.

The program was intended to collect information on American citizens, virtually at random, through all electronic communications -- anything that would show up on an electronic database, Mitrano explained. Algorithmic programs would be applied to this private data to detect suspicious patterns.

"I guess I don't need to tell a smart and informed audience such as yourselves what kind of a dramatic impact that has in regard to civil rights and civil liberties, and certainly it is a stunning departure from general expectations of privacy that we have defined constitutionally over a very long course of time," she said.

Mitrano suggested the audience keep an eye on some of the vague language used to allege domestic terrorism in the Patriot Act. "For example," she said, "it has in it the language 'appears to be,' this really flies in the face of criminal law as we know it. In criminal law you can't 'just appear' or have 'an idea' about a criminal act. You really have to prove specific intent to commit a specific criminal act and commit the act itself. It's really an alarming departure."

Mitrano went on to discuss the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the loosening of rules about search and seizure and some other things she views as departures from fundamental civil liberties.

Evangelista challenged deputy secretary of defense and Cornell alumnus Paul Wolfowitz's "good" war scenario as unrealistic. Evangelista said there is no way to guarantee that the war will be swift with few casualties -- certainly many Iraqis will die, he said. And he added: "I don't see a sustained U.S. commitment to democracy in Afghanistan, and I'm concerned the U.S. will not follow-through in Iraq, even if there is a lot of good will."

And Evangelista said he strongly doubted that the United States would establish a post-war democracy or even gain consensus among the Iraqis, who are a diverse people with varying sects and ethnic groups.

Finally, Evangelista wondered aloud if a U.S.-led attack was just the beginning of an anti-terrorism agenda "to launch one war after another; first Iran, then North Korea, then Pakistan and Colombia. It suggests," he said, "a future of wars without end, and it's a very depressing future."

Sakai offered a perspective from abroad, particularly East Asia, where recently, he said, there is a distinct souring of sentiment toward the U.S. government, in particular, and to America, in general.

"Soon after the (Sept. 11) attacks, there was a unanimous sympathy with the U.S., a sentiment which many in the world shared," Sakai said.

But that support and sympathy did not last long and turned into " a kind of astonishment," he said. Sympathy turned to contempt and anger at the "irritating and self-righteous crusader language" of President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Sakai argued. Increasingly, he said, U.S. anti-terrorist policies are seen by many foreigners simply as "ignorant racism."

"I have met people affected by the war on terror," Sakai said. "Friends who are Christians in India were denied visas for no justifiable reason. Students who were accepted into American universities -- even here -- and were denied the right to come here based on their race alone."

Sakai also was critical of the mass media in the United States.

"If you watch American TV from the point of view of someone from another country," he said, the prevailing messages are "nationalistic, colonialistic and self- righteous."